Thursday, January 30, 2014

Throwing Myself Into New Tasks

It seems that every time we're in the midst of a life change, I take up some new hobby.
I'm one of "those" people.
I just need to create.
Need to be doing something that can cause a broken and messy world to be a little more beautiful.

I can't even count how many hobbies I took up in the wait for Million, but the ones I remember off the top of my head are: having so many potted herbs that our kitchen window ledge looked positively tropical; jelly making; canning; making vanilla extract; spinning yarn; buying dirty fleeces and cleaning them; then carding and dying the wool; knitting; making a king-size quilt; mural painting; and house renovation.

While waiting for Creedence, I took up candle making, and then I decided we should open an Etsy shop for crates which Michael and I built, distressed, and stained, which ended up being more than a part-time job and earned us several thousand, but cost us part of our sanity.

On Tuesday, I sewed on paper for the first time in my life.

I made these paper heart garlands and hung them all around the house. I was tired of the paper snowflakes hanging off the ceiling. (Apologies for the extra nails and screws STILL in the walls that our previous owners left. I have desire, but no motivation.)

My other project that I'm going to take up is one I've been intending for a while. I bought three wingback chairs from a hotel that was getting new furniture. They were $5 a piece. And their ugliness explains the low price. Wednesday, I decided to order fabric, or our house will forevermore have evidence of the-road-to-hell-being-paved-with-good-intentions. Or something like that.

Don't expect a tutorial. I'm going to follow this one. But you may get to see some nasty progress pictures, if I feel inspired.

We'll also be flower gardening along with regular gardening. We weren't going to do flowers...but I need them.

And I'll likely convince Michael to let me make another round of candles. I'm toying with learning how to do pillar candles instead of jar candles. (My argument to convince Michael is that pillars are cheaper...and since it's a new learning process, it will keep me out of trouble. Hardy har har.)

I guess there's no time like the present to rip off some fabric off a nasty wingback. Or watch the tutorials again.